Author Archive

Harry Kyriakodis

Harry Kyriakodis, author of Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront (2011), Northern Liberties: The Story of a Philadelphia River Ward (2012) and The Benjamin Franklin Parkway (2014), regularly gives walking tours and presentations on unique yet unappreciated parts of the city. A founding/certified member of the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides, he is a graduate of La Salle University and Temple University School of Law, and was once an officer in the U.S. Army Field Artillery. He has collected what is likely the largest private collection of books about the City of Brotherly Love: over 2700 titles new and old.

30 years ago Monday the first trains rolled through Philadelphia's $300+ million commuter rail tunnel. It was a visionary, risky, and necessary project, says Harry K. He brings us the full story of its construction, still paying off dividends today > more

Next up in our Halloween cemetery series: Harry K hits the tomes looking for the missing obelisk of Monument Cemetery. Is it sitting in a gravestone dumping ground at the foot of the Betsy Ross Bridge? Its fate may be forever unknown > more

The Pennsylvania Environmental Council is hosting a block party this Saturday to highlight plans that would transform Spring Garden Street into a progressive urban greenway. Harry K. is optimistic and gives us the history of this once great thoroughfare > more